Living 43 North

Grand Rapids, Michigan (+42.9794, -85.5903)

Frederick Meijer Gardens was opened in 1995 by the West Michigan Horticultural Society . Originally, the property was conceived as being mostly a botanical garden; Lena Meijer (Fred’s wife) loved gardens, and supported the local group in developing a local garden. But in order to make the site more of a tourist attraction, Fred helped commission a 24-foot tall bronze homage to Leonardo daVinci’s horse (by sculptor Nina Akamu). While he was involved in the design and construction process, Fred Meijer was exposed to other world-class sculptors. This helped the Meijer family to shift their focus to including works by many sculptors in the park, and made the park into one of the top attractions in Michigan. Many enhancements have been made over the last 30 years, including a butterfly exhibit in the spring and a new Japanese garden area.

It is a wonderful experience to see the gardens at various times of the year. This year, a winter Enlighten program was done, lighting sculptures at night. The 2024 photos below were taken in December.

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For more information, see the following links.

https://www.meijergardens.org/ Website for the Gardens and park today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederik_Meijer_Gardens_%26_Sculpture_Park

CNN 1999 story on The American Horse

The American Horse at Frederik Meijer Gardens, by Larry Ten Harmsel

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32281495-the-american-horse-at-frederik-meijer-gardens-and-sculpture-park

1993 Groundbreaking at Meijer Gardens

Oriskany Battlefield State Historic Site, Oriskany, NY (+43.1765, -75.3700)

Oriskany is a village in upstate New York, between Rome and Utica. On August 6, 1777, two armies battled near the village. This was one of the few battles in the war where there were very few Europeans involved in the fighting. I was surprised by this, since I grew up thinking that the patriots fought against the British oppressors. After doing more research, I found that there were many areas in the colonies where the rebels were not in the majority; and there were units of settlers that fought with the British, especially in the early parts of the revolution. For example, the younger brother of Brigadier-General Nicholas Herkimer fought as a Loyalist.

This battle also marked the beginning of a civil war within the Iroquois nation, as different tribes allied with the Loyalist and Rebel settlers. In 1763, after the French and Indian War, the British had agreed that they would reserve the lands west of the Appalachians for the indigenous peoples. When the colonists ignored this and began clearing the forests, the natives retaliated and joined the British.

The battle was one of the bloodiest in the revolution, based on percentage of the participants. 385 rebels were killed, including Brigadier-General Herkimer. An obelisk was erected in 1884 to commemorate the battle. We visited in September 2024, taking some photos.

After the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, which ended the war and created the United States of America, between 80 and 100,000 Loyalists left the newly created country to settle elsewhere. They ended up losing most of what they had invested in their adopted homeland. One prominent example of the rifts within families was between Benjamin Franklin and his son William.

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For more information, see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriskany_Battlefield_State_Historic_Site

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/127909236-a-few-bloody-noses

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57049135-our-first-civil-war

Welland Canal Lookout, St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada (+43.1550, -79.1938)

The Welland Canal connects Lake Ontario to Lake Erie and allows ships to travel between the Great Lakes. Until the canal was dug, Great Lakes shipping could not get downstream to Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, which connects Lake Ontario to the Atlantic Ocean.

When I was young, I thought that the canal had been built as part of the St. Lawrence Seaway project in the 1950s. The project was designed to allow international trade to come to inland ports like Cleveland and Chicago. But the current version of the canal was completed in 1932 (although minor modifications continue to be made. The first, much smaller canal was constructed in the 1820s, around the same time as the Erie Canal in New York state.

The canal has eight locks to get the ships over the Niagara Escarpment (a steep cliff in the Great Lakes area that I will discuss in a later post). It now takes ships about 11 hours to go between Lakes Erie and Ontario. There are bridges crossing the canal. Some older vertical lift bridges, such as the Glendale Ave. Bridge shown here (photos from 1980 and 2024), can be raised and lowered.

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Because of the St. Lawrence Seaway (and the Welland Canal in particular), ocean-going ships are now able to travel into the freshwater Great Lakes. In addition, ocean fish also traveled the same path. This has caused environmental damage to the lakes, such as the alewife damage to the beaches when I was a kid. Later coho salmon were bred to eat the invasive fish, but other unforeseen consequences happened as a result. Now, we have zebra mussels and quagga mussels threatening the native flora and fauna of the lakes. For an interesting discussion that battle, see the book “The Death and Life of the Great Lakes” by Dan Egan.

For more information:

http://www.stcatharinesmuseum.ca/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welland_Canal

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35187180-the-death-and-life-of-the-great-lakes

Rye Harbor State Park, New Hampshire (+43.0017, -70.7425)

    This state park is the furthest east point exactly on the 43rd parallel of latitude in the United States. As we drove to the site and paid our parking fee, I was excited to see a tall obelisk near the Atlantic Ocean. But, alas, it didn’t relate to anything about latitude 43 degrees north. It is labeled 1614, and remembers John Smith’s visit to New Hampshire during that year. 

    Yes, this is the same John Smith that was a leader of the first British colony in North America -- Jamestown, Virginia. He was a famous author who loved to tell of his exploits, many of which are doubted. You may remember the story of Pocahontas. According to the 1953 World Book Encyclopedia, “… the Indians captured Smith and condemned him to death. He claimed that Pocahontas, the daughter of the Indian chief, saved him by throwing her body on his when the executioner’s ax was about to fall. This story also is doubted.” 

    Smith was later injured in a gunpowder explosion and returned to England in 1609. He returned to North America in 1614, where he explored the coasts further north of Virginia, which he named “New England” and made accurate maps of the area. According to the information on the memorial, this map was later used by the Pilgrims when they came to Massachusetts and founded Plymouth in 1620.

    The monument was erected in 2014, the 400th anniversary of Smith’s map. I was amused to read that it is 17 feet, 2 inches tall, which is the same as 16 feet, 14 inches (1614).

    In addition, there is a historical marker in the park related to the Isles of Shoals, visible offshore from the park.

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For more information:
http://www.1614monument.com/p/monument.html

1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, by Charles C. Mann (2011), Chapter 2 (“The Tobacco Coast”)

World Book Encyclopedia, 1953, “Smith, John” entry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye_Harbor_State_Park

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rye_Harbor_State_Park

Hawkeye Point (+43.46, -95.7089)

This spot, just over 3 miles south of the Minnesota border, is listed as the highest elevation in the state of Iowa. It is located just east of Iowa highway 60, northeast of Sibley, Iowa. 
If you search for “Hawkeye Point” in Google Maps, it is listed as a Mountain Peak. You will be sorely disappointed if you want to see a peak, or even a big hill. Geographically, Hawkeye Point is a rise near a silo. 
 Osceola County has done a good job of making a metaphorical mountain out of a molehill. There is a nice mosaic at the site, and signs pointing to other states’ highpoints. They also have a bulletin board sharing information about other interesting places in the county. 

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For those that prefer the highpont in a state to look like a hill, I would suggest traveling about 15 miles southeast from Hawkeye Point to Ocheyedan Mound.

Ocheyedan Mound (+43.4029, -95.5217)

Ocheyedan Mound was thought to be Iowa’s highpoint until 1971. It is 15 feet lower than Hawkeye Point, but rises high above the surrounding countryside. The mound used to be higher, but until 1909 people removed gravel and sand from the top. 
The mound is technically a glacial kame, formed by retreating glaciers during the last ice age. 

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For more information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawkeye_Point
https://www.mycountyparks.com/county/Osceola/Park/Ocheyedan-Mound.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocheyedan,_Iowa

Clear Lake, Iowa (+43.1400, -93.3900)

The Surf Ballroom is a nightclub in north central Iowa, near where I-35 enters Minnesota. It could have been torn down long ago except for its important place in musical history. It was the location of the last concert put on by Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) on February 2, 1959. After the concert, Holly, Valens, and Richardson took off in a small plane piloted by Roger Peterson. Six miles northwest of the airport, the plane crashed into a field, killing all its occupants. The musicians were all young: Holly was 22, Valens was 17, and the Big Bopper was 28.

For its size, the Surf Ballroom has a tremendous amount of information related to roll-and-roll history. There gold records, handwritten lyrics of the song “American Pie” by Don McLean, and signatures of musicians that visited over the years. It is an oldies paradise.

A non-profit organization runs the site now, For a suggested donation of $5 USD, you can take a self-guided tour of the building. Plan on an hour; unless you are a sentimental baby boomer, which will take you longer if you read all the historical information.

Buddy Holly Crash Site (+43.2200, -93.3744)

After experiencing the Surf Ballroom, the real Buddy Holly fans could also visit the site north of Clear Lake where Holly’s plane crashed. It is a short 11-minute drive, 6 miles north. You can park along the road at the corner of Gull Avenue and 315th Street. You will see memorial glasses near the intersection, and can walk west about a quarter mile to where there is a makeshift memorial along the property line. Pause for a few minutes, remember the musical talent that was lost in that field (e.g. “That’ll Be the Day”, “La Bamba”, “Chantilly Lace”), and grieve the possibilities of what could have been if all of them had survived that fateful night.

For more information:

https://www.surfballroom.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surf_Ballroom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Music_Died

To hear the songs mentioned:

Grand Rapids, Michigan (+42.9595, -85.66)

Foster Park is a small triangle of grass located southeast of the downtown area of Grand Rapids. There are no playgrounds or picnic tables. But this park does include one historically significant thing: a copy of a statue named “The Hiker,” sculpted by Theo Alice Ruffles Kitson. This statue was dedicated in 1928, and commemorates the Spanish War of 1898-1902. The base’s plaque mentions Cuba, Porto Rico, and Philippine Islands. When I took history back in the 1960’s, we learned about the Battle of Manila Bay and how that pretty much ended the war in the Philippines. However, the natives in the Philippines kept fighting the United States for years.

The original of the statue is located at the University of Minnesota ROTC building in Minneapolis. There were at least 50 copies made.

References for further study: The Hiker (Kitson)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hiker_(Kitson)

“How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States” by Daniel Immerwahr

Niagara Falls, NY and Ontario (+43.08,-79.071)

Niagara Falls have been a popular tourist destination since the early 1800’s. The Niagara River is on the boundary between New York and Ontario, running south from Lake Erie toward Lake Ontario. The falls are lighted up at night.  The tourist shops in Niagara Falls, Ontario, are the epitome of souvenir shops.

My grandparents visited in 1935 with their family (B&W photo), and we were visiting there in 1980 (color photos).  Neither of these were honeymoon trips, which were popular in the early days of tourism.

Calico Skies Vineyard and Winery (+43.308, -96.506)

If you’re like most of us, you have a mental image of all of Iowa being very flat and containing only fields of corn.  But this is incorrect! In the most northwesterly county of Iowa lies the small town of Inwood. Take US-18 west out of town, and you go down into the Big Sioux River valley (boundary with South Dakota). Before you leave Iowa, you will be be surprised to find a vineyard and winery on a hillside along Highway 18.

Calico Skies opened in 2011. They have a beautiful building near the vineyard, and use it for wine tasting and special events (like parties and wedding receptions). But this is a working vineyard! They grow grapes onsite, and make the wine right there. We went on a tour in June 2016, and hope to return for another winetasting in the future.  The wine choices were good, with excellent taste.

Give it a try!

For more information, see their website: http://www.calicoskieswine.com/

USS Silversides Submarine Museum (+43.230,-86.332)

As my family members would quickly tell you, I am drawn irresistibly to historic markers or anything that has historical significance. But, until this April, I never had seen a treasure that is located less than an hour’s drive from my home.  This treasure is a museum dedicated to the USS Silversides, a WWII sub floating in the channel between Lake Michigan and Muskegon Lake. I’ve been to Pere Marquette Park countless times, but never drove the half mile to go into the museum.  Do not make this mistake!

The museum gives a nice history of WWII and how submarines were used in the war. The exhibits are extremely interesting to Baby Boomers who grew up hearing the stories and movies (such as “Run Silent, Run Deep”).

Along the pier are two ships: the USS Silversides and the USCGC McLane (a 1920’s era Coast Guard cutter that is directly in front of the sub).  With your museum admission, you can also tour both of these ships.   The sub is a slight challenge to knees, with a lot of bending to get through the waterproof chambers. But this makes your experience more realistic.  The cutter is easier, although there are ladders to get between decks; at least you have windows to look out.

References: https://silversidesmuseum.org/

For a history of the Silversides, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Silversides_(SS-236)